Tuesday, February 25, 2014

2/20/14 Day 35 Lisbon

Moving to a new host today, the skies are grey and our energy is low with the walking intensive week we have had. We pack up our bags and say goodbye to Donna and Luch. These two have been such amazing hosts, and awesome friends to enjoy Lisbon with. Hopefully we can meet them in the Northwest when we return from traveling. Also an inspiration to always travel and to eventually have a place that we can home swap to travel, their experiences and places they have been able to travel to are extraordinary.

Next we are off to the North side of the Tejo River to stay with Francisco who is a high school friend of João's that goes to university in Lisbon and his sister Mariana! So we head to the bus station to catch the 10:30, bus but to our disappointment the bus schedule we had was actually outdated, the bus now comes at 11:00, making our 11:30 meet-up time a very difficult task. We rush as much as we can to get off the bus, onto the metro and out to the mall when Francisco is picking us up, but just can't make it. As soon as we find some wifi we are able to contact him and relieved to find out his place is only a fifteen minute walk away. We drop off our bags at his place and head out to explore the surrounding Parque de Naçoes which was built for the 1998 Lisbon World's fair and is the newest part of the city. We walk down to the Vasco De Gama bridge which is the longest bridge in Europe with a total length of 10.7 miles. There is a science museum, a huge oceanariums, and a gondola with city views nestled among the many pretty parks. When we arrive back at the apartment Mariana is busy preparing dinner. She cooks the four of us a great pasta dish and we talk about our travel plans. They have cousins that live on the East coast in the states and are traveling to China with them this summer. Francisco loves London and full of great hints. Mariana loves to travel and has been to many countries in Europe that we hope to soon get to.